The present invention relates generally to emergency, non-crash landing of aircraft after damage to its landing gear.
The use of pressurized gas inflated bags to absorb impact during emergency landing of an aircraft, has already been proposed in accordance with various prior art safety landing systems, as respectively disclosed for example in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,259,574 to Carrot, 5,765,778 to Otsuka and 5,992,794 to Rotman et al. The inflated bags cushion impact with a landing surface otherwise stricken by the fixed landing gear associated with a helicopter type of aircraft as disclosed in the foregoing referred to patents to Carrot and Rotman et al. Such inflated bags when deployed project from the bottom of the helicopter substantially below its fixed landing gear to engage the landing surface during a crash or difficult landing without removal of the landing gear. It is an important object of the present invention to deploy such impact absorbing crash landing bags on a helicopter aircraft having a different and improved relationship to the mechanical landing gear otherwise utilized during a normal landing.
In accordance with the present invention, the mechanical helicopter landing gear is selectively jettisoned from locations in wells formed in the bottom of the helicopter, upon detection of landing gear damage prior to a landing operation. After being jettisoned, the landing gear is replaced by impact absorbing bags displaced into the wells. Such landing gear is selectively detached from the helicopter within the wells through releasable fasteners to initiate said jettisoning under gravitational force. The impact absorbing bags are displaced into the wells from a stowage container in response to gas pressure inflation thereof from a deflated condition while stored in the container. Further, such inflation is initiated in time delayed relation to selective detachment of the landing gear to avoid jettison interference and damaging puncture of the deployed impact absorbing bags.